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Island/Summary
Childhood The Proving Ground It is 1 month since a nuclear accident sickened Japanese fishermen and forced the evacuation of three islands in the Pacific. With the assistance of conspirators inside the Atomic Energy Commission's weapons testing program, Carl Benneton, his wife Alicia, their adopted children Maya and Mikado, and Alicia's cousin Robert Atwater sail a yacht into the Pacific Proving Ground, intending to stage a protest and force an end to the atmospheric testing of the hydrogen bomb. Things go wrong, and the yacht is incinerated in a nuclear blast. California lawyer Jonathan Studeman has just returned from Japan, where he observed the sick and dying fishermen. There he was given – and he delivers – a personal letter to Vice President Richard Nixon. From Nixon, the president learns that an unidentified Army general has been warning Senator Joe McCarthy about a plot to infiltrate the Pacific Proving Ground. When news of the yacht arrives, President Eisenhower orders Studeman to investigate the conspiracy and find a way to avoid publicity and protect the testing program. Meanwhile, in a stunt intended to win adulation, Russell Weyland, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, is humiliated by the pastor of a church that his son had once attended in Indianapolis. The pastor is Jim Jones. The newest members of the church are Peter Hansen, an ex-Marine, and his pregnant Japanese bride, Kimiko. After publicly humiliating Weyland by inviting him to address a congregation that he did not know was predominately black, Jones pretends to cure Kimiko of a "brain tumor" falsely diagnosed by a doctor friend. Crossroads At the Proving Ground in the Marshall Islands, Studeman discovers that one of the conspirators is a young Navy RADAR operator, Russell Weyland, Jr., son of the infamous Ku Klux Klan member from Indianapolis. From Russell, he learns that the family staged from a campsite on Yelbatin, an uninhabited island 60 miles northeast of Bikini Atoll. There, Studeman finds the dead bodies of Alicia and Maya Benneton, victims of suicide, and the boy, Mikado, still alive. The three were left behind, stranded, with no hope of survival, when the yacht sailed to Bikini and was destroyed. Mikado is of mixed blood, Amerasian. Studeman realizes that Alicia was the woman who gave him the letter, a month ago in Japan. Russell Weyland is found hanged in his cell on Kwajalein, apparently another suicide. With no clue to the identity of other conspirators, Studeman returns to Washington to learn the contents of the letter. He leaves the boy in the care of his best friend, psychiatrist Dr. Isaac Levanthal. The letter is a warning and a plea for an end to weapons testing. It does not name the inside conspirators, but does mention Robert Atwater as a man whose life Nixon had once saved. Nixon says that he had not read the letter, and he claims not to know anyone named Atwater. In an angry confrontation, Nixon fires Studeman, and demands he return the letter. Studeman refuses, and says the letter will be in the report he gives to Eisenhower. In the Marshall Islands, we learn the identities of the four surviving anti-nuclear conspirators when their leader, Dr. Isaac Levanthal, places a call to a German man living in Hawaii. The call is being monitored by fellow conspirator, Navy Lieutenant Commander Bryan O'Connor. Levanthal warns the German that he, Levanthal, may be arrested, because the boy, Mikado, recognizes him and will soon be well enough to talk. The German, Hans-Heinric Krueger, also had a close relationship with the Bennetons. Levanthal and Krueger agree that Levanthal will have to get rid of the boy. Hearing this conversation, O'Connor believes, as Krueger does, that Levanthal intends murder. O'Connor races to the isolation ward of the hospital, where Mikado was being kept hidden. He finds that Levanthal has put the dead girl Maya's body in Mikado's bed, and is now carrying Mikado away. Thinking Levanthal insane, O'Connor confronts him and learns that the doctor has a plan. With help from O'Connor and the fourth conspirator, a Russian-born FBI interrogator-translator named Natalia Lysenko, who is in love with Levanthal, they can use the Navy's desire to protect the testing program to their advantage. They will tell Jonathan Studeman that the boy has died, and they will arrange for bodies to be buried on Yelbatin, and for the disappearance of the Bennetons to be reported as a family lost at sea, somewhere far from the Marshall Islands. Meanwhile, in Hawaii, Hans-Heinric Krueger reports the death of the Benneton family to Army General Edwin Walker. In a flashback to the closing days of World War II, we learn that Krueger was a mining engineer at the tunnels of Mittelwerk, and a Nazi war criminal. Surrendering to the Americans at war's end, he struck up a friendship with the youthful Walker, who advised him to "tell everyone you're a communist," and he was brought to America in the company German rocket scientists. Now, Krueger has been spying for Walker, feeding him information about the conspiracy to infiltrate the Proving Ground. Walker, whom Krueger admires as "the next Fuhrer, America's own," tells Krueger to back off. It is now too dangerous. A week later, Bryan O'Connor arrives at the home of Russell Weyland in Indianapolis, and tells him that his dead son, Russell, Jr., was implicated in a conspiracy before taking his own life, and that he had a child whose mother must have been Korean. Weyland, a rabid bigot and segregationist, refuses to accept custody, and angrily tells Bryan to "give the little bastard" to the Jones church. Isaac Levanthal and Natalia Lysenko, together, take Mikado Benneton to Jim Jones and tell the same story. Jones suggests that Mikado be adopted by Peter and Kimiko Hansen. We learn that Kimiko grew up in Moscow. She is the very beautiful daughter of a Japanese diplomat who was executed in Japan at the end of World War II for being a communist. Ostracized and impoverished, she was forced to leave a sister behind in Japan, working in the clubs, when she married Peter and came to America. Kimiko and Natalia are able to converse in Russian. Translating, Natalia helps to persuade Kimiko to accept the child, along with financial support from Levanthal, who is quite wealthy. Mikado, understanding nothing and seeing a baby girl in Kimiko's arms, happens to utter the name of his dead sister, "Maya." To this, Kimiko replies, "I like that name." Little Rock Three years later, Isaac Levanthal is Chief of Psychiatry at the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. Federal troops under the command of Major General Edwin Walker are enforcing the court-ordered integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Walker has sent letters to President Eisenhower complaining that the assignment is contrary to his personal beliefs. Levanthal is asked by the Prison Bureau Director to evaluate Walker's mental stability. In Little Rock, Walker refuses to meet with Levanthal, and tells him, "I know all about you, Doctor. You'd better watch your back." Shortly thereafter, Levanthal is accosted by Hans Krueger, who demands to know why he has spoken to the general, and threatens to expose him as a murderer. When Levanthal reveals that the boy, Mikado, is still alive, Krueger demands to know where. Suspicious, Levanthal asks FBI agent Natalia Lysenko to dig deeper into Krueger's past. Also, it is revealed that Levanthal has been subjecting the boy to psychiatric treatment to erase his memory of Hawaii, a process he now must reverse to learn what the boy may know about Krueger. A month later, the Jones Church is firebombed at night, while children are sleeping there. One of the children is Mikado Benneton, now named Hideo Hansen. Hideo is badly burned but survives, and tells Levanthal he wants to change his name again, to Hideo Shin in honor of his decreased natural mother, Shin Jung-hwa, who speaks to him in dreams. Levanthal suspects that the bomber was Hans Krueger, but the police and FBI have identified Russell Weyland from fingerprints and a letter found at the church. Weyland is now a fugitive. Days later, Levanthal receives a phone call from a man disguising his voice who claims to know where Levanthal can find the bomber before the police do. Levanthal, with the help of his co-conspirators Bryan O'Connor and Natalia Lysenko, captures Hans Krueger and brings him to the basement of the Medical Center's Psychiatric Ward, where they torture him and extract a confession. Not only is he a Nazi war criminal whose whereabouts were unknown to anyone but Edwin Walker, but he is also a sadistic pedophile who had abused the boy, Mikado. They confirm that Russell Weyland firebombed the church with bombs built by Krueger, one of which was purposely set not to go off, so as to leave evidence implicating Weyland. The three interrogators agree to dispose of Krueger, and are not worried about Weyland since he knows nothing about them. But unknown to the conspirators, Weyland himself was hiding in the truck of the car, behind a false rear seat, when they had stopped and captured Krueger. Levanthal, Lysenko and O'Conner take Krueger to a highway construction site. They dig a trench, throw Krueger in, execute him with his own gun, and bury him. But on the way out, they notice an empty vehicle parked at the entrance. Lysenko inspects it, and is shocked to discover that it is Krueger's own car.